Daniel Dines

@BillAckman Bill, this reflects 100% my experience at uipath and even in my small VC firm. Great courage to expose it, I wish there will be more public support for this cause, I am willing to sign a letter of support.

I am reaching out to the @X community for advice with the likely risk of sharing TMI. I have been sufficiently upset about the whole matter that I have lost sleep thinking about it and I am hoping that this post will enable me to get this matter off my chest. By way of background, I started a family office called TABLE about 15 years ago and hired a friend who had previously managed a family office, and years earlier, had been my personal accountant. She is someone that I trusted implicitly and consider to be a good person. The office started small, but over the last decade, the number of personnel and the cost of the office grew massively. The growth was entirely on the operational side as the investment team has remained tiny. While my investment portfolio grew substantially, the investments I had made were almost entirely passive and TABLE simply needed to account for them and meet capital calls as they came in. While TABLE purchased additional software and other systems that were supposed to improve productivity, the team kept increasing in size at a rapid rate, and the expenses continued to grow even faster. While I would periodically question the growing expenses and high staff turnover, I stayed uninvolved with the office other than a once-a-year meeting when I briefly reviewed the operations and the financials and determined bonus compensation for the President and the CFO. I spent no time with any of the other employees or the operations. The whole idea behind TABLE was that it would handle everything other than my day job so that I would have more time for my job and my family. Over the last six years, expenses ballooned even further, employee turnover accelerated, and I became concerned that all was not well at TABLE. It was time for me to take a look at what was going on. Nearly four years ago, I recruited my nephew who had recently graduated from Harvard and put him to work at Bremont, a British watchmaker, one of my only active personal investments to figure out the issues at the company and ultimately assist in executing a turnaround. He did a superb job. When he returned from the UK late last year after a few years at Bremont, I asked him to help me figure out what was going on with TABLE. When I explained to TABLE’s president what he would be doing, she became incredibly defensive, which naturally made me more concerned. My nephew went to work by first meeting with each employee to understand their roles at the company and to learn from them what ideas they had on how things could be improved. He got an earful. Our first step in helping to turn around TABLE was a reduction in force including the president and about a third of the team, retaining excellent talent that had been desperate for new leadership. Now here is where I need your advice. All but one of the employees who were terminated acted professionally and were gracious on the way out (excluding the president who had a notice period in her contract, is currently still being paid, and with whom I have not yet had a discussion). The highest compensated terminated employee other than the president, an in-house lawyer (let’s call her Ronda), told us that three months of severance was not enough and demanded two years’ severance despite having worked at the company for only two and one half years. When I learned of Ronda's request for severance, I offered to speak with her to understand what she was thinking, but she refused to do so. A few days ago, we received a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley law firm. In the letter, Ronda’s counsel suggests that her termination is part of longstanding issues of ‘harassment and gender discrimination’ – an interesting claim in light of the fact that Ronda was in charge of workplace compliance – and that her termination was due to: “unlawful, retaliatory, and harmful conduct directed towards her. Both [Ronda] and I [Ronda’s lawyer] have spoken with you about [Ronda’s] view of what a reasonable resolution would include given the circumstances. Thus far, TABLE has refused to provide any substantive response. This letter provides the last opportunity to reach a satisfactory agreement. If we cannot do so, [Ronda] will seek all appropriate relief in a court of competent jurisdiction.” The letter goes on to explain the basis for the “unsafe work environment” claim at TABLE: “In early 2026, Pershing Square’s founder Bill Ackman installed his nephew in an unidentified role at TABLE, Ackman’s family office. [His nephew]—whose only work experience had been for TABLE where he was seconded abroad for the last four years to a UK watch company held by Ackman—began appearing at TABLE’s offices and conducting interviews of employees without a clear explanation of his role or the purposes of these interviews. During this period, he made a series of inappropriate and genderbased [sic] comments to multiple employees that created an unsafe work environment. Among other things, [his nephew] made remarks about female employees’ ages (“Tell me you are nowhere near 40”), physical appearance (“Your body does not look like you have kids”), as well as intrusive questions about family planning and sexual orientation (“Who carried your son? Who will carry your next child?”). These incidents were reported to senior leadership at TABLE and Pershing Square. Rather than being addressed appropriately, the response from senior management reflected, at best, willful blindness to the inappropriateness of [his nephew]’s remarks and, at worst, tacit endorsement.” The above allegations about my nephew had previously been brought to my attention by TABLE’s president when they occurred. When I learned of them, I told the president that I would speak to him directly and encouraged her to arrange for him to get workplace sensitivity training. The president assured me that she would do so. When I spoke to my nephew, he explained what he actually had said and how his actual remarks had been received, not at all as alleged in the legal letter from Ronda’s counsel. I have also spoken to others at the lunch table who confirmed his description of the facts. In any case, he meant no harm, was simply trying to build rapport with other employees, and no one, as far as I understand, was offended. Ironically, Ronda claims in her legal letter that TABLE didn’t take HR compliance seriously, yet Ronda was in charge of HR compliance at TABLE and the person who gave my nephew his workplace sensitivity training after the alleged incidents. In any case, Ronda, as head of compliance, should have kept a record or raised an alarm if indeed there was pervasive harassment or other such problems at the company, and there is no evidence whatsoever that this is true. So why does Ronda believe she can get me to pay her nearly $2 million, i.e., two years of severance, nearly one year of severance for each of her years at the company? Well, here is where some more background would be helpful. Over the last two months, I have been consumed with a major family medical issue – one of my older daughters had a massive brain hemorrhage on February 5th and has since been making progress on her recovery – and I am in the midst of a major transaction for my company which I am executing from a hospital room office next to her . While the latter business matter is publicly known, the details of my daughter’s situation are only known to Ronda because of her role at our family office. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, while New York and many other states have employment-at-will, there has emerged an industry of lawyers who make a living from bringing fake gender, race, LGBTQ and other discrimination employment claims in order to extract larger severance payments for terminated employees, and it needs to stop. The fake claim system succeeds because it costs little to have a lawyer send a threatening letter and nearly all of the lawyers in this field work on contingency so there is no or minimal cash cost to bring a claim. And inevitably, nearly 100% of these claims are settled because the public relations and legal costs of defending them exceed the dollar cost of the settlement. The claims are nearly always settled with a confidentiality agreement where the employee who asserts the fake claims remains anonymous and as a result, there is no reputational cost to bringing false claims. The consequences of this sleazy system (let’s call it ‘the System’) are the increased costs of doing business which is a tax on the economy and society. There are other more serious problems due to the System. Unfortunately, the existence of an industry of plaintiff firms and terminated employees willing to make these claims makes it riskier for companies to hire employees from a protected class, i.e., LGBTQ, seniors, women, people of color etc. because it is that much more reputationally damaging and expensive to be accused of racism, sexism, and/or intolerance for sexual diversity than for firing a white male as juries generally have less sympathy for white males. The System therefore increases the risk of discrimination rather than reducing it, and the people bringing these fake claims are thereby causing enormous harm to the other members of these protected classes. So what happened here? Ronda was vastly overpaid and overqualified for the job that she did at TABLE. She was paid $1.05 million plus benefits last year for her work which was largely comprised of filling out subscription agreements and overseeing an outside law firm on closing passive investments in funds and in private and venture stage companies, some compliance work, and managing the office move from one office to another. She had a very good gig as she was highly paid, only had to go into the office three days a week, and could work from anywhere during the summer. Once my nephew showed up and started to investigate what was going on, she likely concluded that there was a reasonable possibility she would be terminated, as her job was in the too-easy-and-to-good-to-be-true category. The problem was that she was not in a protected class due to her race, age or sexual identity so she had to construct the basis for a claim. While she is female and could in theory bring a gender-based discrimination claim, she reported to the president who is female and to whom she is very close, which makes it difficult for her to bring a harassment claim against her former boss. When my nephew complimented a TABLE employee at lunch about how young she looked – in response to saying she was going to her 40-year-old sister’s birthday party, he said ‘she must be your older sister’ – Ronda immediately reported it to our external HR lawyer. She thereby began building her case. The other problem for Ronda bringing a claim is that she was terminated alongside 30% of other TABLE employees as part of a restructuring so it is very difficult for her to say that she was targeted in her termination or was retaliated against. TABLE is now hiring an external fractional general counsel as that is all the company needs to process the relatively limited amount of legal work we do internally. In short, Ronda was eminently qualified and capable and did her job. She was just too much horsepower for what is largely an administrative legal role so she had to come up with something else to bring a claim. Now Ronda knew I was a good target and it was a good time to bring a claim against me. She also knew that I was under a lot of pressure because on March 4th when Ronda was terminated, my daughter had not yet emerged from consciousness, she was not yet breathing on her own, and my daughter and we were fighting for her life. I was and remain deeply engaged in her recovery while at the same time I was working on finishing the closing for the private placement round for my upcoming IPO. Ronda also knew that publicity about supposed gender discrimination and a “hostile and unsafe work environment” are not things that a CEO of a company about to go public wants to have released into the media. And she may have thought that the nearly $2 million she was asking for would be considered small in the context of the reputational damage a lawsuit could cause, regardless of the fact that two years of severance was an absurd amount for an employee who had only worked at TABLE for 30 months. She also likely considered that I wouldn’t want to embarrass my nephew by dragging him into the klieg lights when her claims emerged publicly. So, in summary, game theory would say that I would certainly settle this case, for why would I risk negative publicity at a time when I was preparing our company to go public and also risk embarrassing my nephew. Notably, she hired a Silicon Valley law firm, rather than a typical NY employment firm. This struck me as interesting as her husband works for one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture firms whose CEO, I am sure, has no tolerance for these kinds of fake claims that sadly many venture-backed companies also have to deal with. I mention this as I suspect her husband likely has been working with her on the strategy for squeezing me as, in addition to being a computer scientist, he is a game theorist. My only advice for him is to understand more about your opponent before you launch your first move. All of the above said, gender, race, LGBTQ and other such discrimination is a real thing. Many people have been harmed and deserve compensation for this discrimination, and these companies and individuals should be punished for engaging in such behavior. Which brings me to the advice I am seeking from the X community. I am not planning to follow the typical path and settle this ‘claim.’ Rather, I am going to fight this nonsense to the end of the earth in the hope that it inspires other CEOs to do the same so we shut down this despicable behavior that is a large tax on society, employment, and the economy and contributes to workplace discrimination rather than reducing it. Do you agree or disagree that this is the right approach?

Talked about all of this with @johnkoetsier and @matalla on TechFirst. Worth your time if you're thinking past the buzzwords. youtube.com/watch?v=QOfY94…

That doesn't make AI less powerful, it just changes where the value sits. A year ago what we're building at @UiPath would have sounded like science fiction. Agents that interview subject matter experts, process documents, write the code, test it, deploy it, monitor it, handle exceptions. All of it. Today that's on our near-term roadmap. But even as we automate more, the human role gets more important. The judgment call that no model can make for you. Enterprises need to trust who they hand the keys to and that trust is built over years, not quarters.

If you started your company over today with two people. A seller and a builder. Who's the third hire?

Financial crime compliance is one of the hardest problems in financial services. And it's only getting harder. The institutions fighting it need partners who understand the stakes. Today I'm excited to announce that @UiPath has acquired @WorkFusion. What drew me to @AdamFamularo and his team goes beyond the technology. Yes, they've built exceptional AI agents for customer screening, investigations, and risk analysis. But more importantly, they approach this work the way we do: with a deep respect for the human judgment at the center of compliance, and an obsession with earning customers' trust through governance, security, and control. Together, we're going deeper on purpose-built solutions for know your customer, anti-money laundering, sanctions, and related financial crime use cases - combining their domain expertise with our business orchestration and agentic automation platform. Adam, to you and your team: welcome to UiPath. Excited for what we'll build together.

Hearing Paul Kistner describing our partnership with @AllegisGlobal in this way is exactly what we strive for. Grateful for collaborations that push our thinking and make us better.

Enterprises want the speed and intelligence of AI agents and automation, but never at the expense of security or control. Auditability remains essential in making that possible. Organizations need to verify what happened, when it happened, and why, and this level of transparency has shaped how we’ve built trust with enterprises over many years. Protecting sensitive information is equally critical as AI models enter more workflows. Model governance helps safeguard PII, enforce regional and data-handling requirements, and log every model interaction so organizations can innovate without compromising the data they are responsible for. Underpinning all of this is that customers need to know they can trust the companies that platforms and tools they rely on to get work done across their businesses. Governance and security are what allow enterprises to move forward with confidence, and they remain the foundation of the trust we’ve earned and continue to protect as the landscape of agentic automation evolves.

Great result showing our focus on enhancing RPA with Autonomous Computer Use!

This is the first instance of a genre that will be called post reality poetry.

Japan has been one of the earliest countries to truly embrace automation, and one of the first places @UiPath expanded to as a company. Every time I return, I’m reminded how open and forward-thinking this market is. Spending the past week with our customers, partners, and team across FUSION and DevCon was energizing. Our conversations reinforced that security and enterprise reliability are not mere features, but expectations. And the key to safely harnessing the power of generative AI in the enterprise is orchestration, which stands at the core of our agentic automation approach. The trust our Japanese customers have placed in us over the years pushes us to stay sharp and continue building technology that meet these high expectations. It was great to join Koichi Hasegawa on stage, and to welcome Hiromi Oka from @Microsoft and Tak Izaki from @nvidia. We talked about the agent-driven future of work: a world where autonomous AI agents, robots, and people operate together with governance and control to deliver real value. Thank you to everyone who joined us throughout the week. Your insights, questions, and partnership continue to shape how we build.

In our third quarter, we delivered ARR of $1.782 billion, up 11% year over year - a testament to the team’s focus, consistent execution, and the momentum we’re seeing as customers scale agentic automation across the enterprise. Thank you @MorganLBrennan and @jonfortt for having me on @CNBCOvertime today to discuss what’s behind that performance and the trends we’re seeing as enterprises accelerate their AI and automation strategies. More organizations are looking for a unified platform rather than standalone tools, and that shift is becoming clear in how they adopt and expand automation. Our ability to bring deterministic automation, agentic automation, and orchestration together in one trusted system is a real differentiator. This combination delivers meaningful outcomes for customers and helps them run end-to-end automation with confidence and scale. What gives me confidence is how quickly organizations are embracing an open ecosystem approach. Our customers tell me they want choice, and that they want a platform that works with any model, any system, any agent. That openness is core to who we are and fundamental to the @UiPath Platform and we are humbled that it continues to resonate with customers around the world. If you missed the interview, you can watch the full segment here: cnbc.com/video/2025/12/…

Scalability is what separates experimentation from real transformation in technology. The latest Everest Group report identifies scalability as one of the key drivers for intelligent process automation platforms adoption. Enterprises are shifting away from automating tasks in isolation to end-to-end, proactive solutions, demanding an architecture that can manage complexity, uphold governance, and evolve with AI. This shaped our pivot toward orchestration, which is why I am proud to share that UiPath has been named a Leader and Star Performer in the Everest Group Full Suite Intelligent Process Automation Platform PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2025. Orchestration applies as much to large, cross-department workflows as it does to smaller, team-level or individual processes. It creates the connective tissue that allows automation and AI to work together and provides the insights needed to understand how each element contributes to the whole. Gaining a 360-degree view of how work happens is essential to managing complexity and scaling automation responsibly. This principle continues to guide our product direction and the way we partner with customers on their transformation journeys. This recognition, along with our leadership position for Vision and Market Impact in the Intelligent Process Automation Platform (IPAP) PEAK Matrix® Assessment reflects our commitment to supporting enterprise-wide digital transformation.

The @UiPath Community has always been at the heart of everything we do. From the early days of UiPath to where we are now, some of the best ideas have come from the engineers, developers, and automation experts who explore our platform and push it in new directions. Every year at Fusion, it’s a tradition for me to meet some of our UiPath MVPs in person. It’s always one of my favorite moments: seeing familiar faces, welcoming new ones, and hearing firsthand how this community continues to drive innovation. Our MVPs are leaders who set the pace for what’s possible in automation and now in the growing space of agentic AI. Their creativity and dedication continue to shape how technology empowers people and organizations around the world. Applications to become a UiPath MVP are open through November 20. This year, we’re expanding the program to include new categories: AI & Agentic Workflows, Process Orchestration, and Solution Developers for those building with LLMs and coded agents beyond UiPath. Join us in shaping the future: community.uipath.com/mvp/

Great points on why AI cannot (yet) replace software engineers. This is what all seasoned developers will tell, the bottleneck is not in writing code - I think coding was 5% of my job as backend dev - but in: -Understanding and reflecting business logic -Architecting clean, extensible systems -Managing side effects, state, latency, auth, concurrency, observability -Reasoning through edge cases and failure modes tinyurl.com/vibesareoff

Saudi Arabia is moving fast - and thinking big. With $24.8B invested in digital infrastructure over the last 6 years, 99% internet coverage, and broadband speeds doubling global averages, it’s no surprise the Kingdom aims to lead in AI by 2030. That’s why last week, we opened our new @UiPath office in Riyadh: a bold step in our long-term commitment to Vision 2030 and to building a more innovative future. Proud to have been on the ground to mark this milestone.

At GITEX, I had the chance to speak with David Popovici, Olympic champion, Global Ambassador for UiPath, and someone I’m lucky to call a friend. We talked about how excellence can emerge even when the conditions aren’t perfect. David became one of the world’s best swimmers from Romania, a country without a strong tradition in the sport. His story shows that greatness often grows out of adversity, through determination and the drive to push beyond limits. At @UiPath, our journey has been similar in spirit. We started from the same place, guided by the conviction that talent, perseverance, and collaboration can create something meaningful anywhere in the world. Progress in both sports and technology comes from the same mindset: discipline, collaboration, and a constant drive to improve. What connects David’s path and what we see in businesses adopting AI is vision, the willingness to take on big challenges, stay decisive, and go all in on what truly matters. Those who embrace that mindset and face their biggest challenges head-on are the ones achieving the most meaningful transformation. The courage to keep learning and moving forward, even when the path is uncertain, is what turns potential into lasting impact.

Thank you @jonfortt and @MorganLBrennan for having me on @CNBCOvertime today to speak about the momentum we are seeing at UiPath. As I shared, the growth of agentic AI is not hype and the customers taking on the hardest problems are seeing results. We will continue to take an open approach, building partnerships with the most important players in the AI ecosystem, that ensures that customers can put our automation platform to work for them regardless of what AI infrastructure, models, and applications they choose. Link to recording: cnbc.com/video/2025/10/…

We did it again! The UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation and orchestration has been named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025.

Software testing has long shifted from an afterthought to be a central part of how organizations accelerate innovation. That’s why we have made agentic testing a core capability of the UiPath Platform: to help teams design, automate, and manage quality at enterprise scale. And I am proud to share that UiPath has been named a Leader in the first-ever Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for AI-Augmented Software Testing Tools. To our team, this recognition validates our vision for agentic testing – AI-powered agents working alongside people – and reflects the measurable results our customers achieve with UiPath Test Cloud. You can access the report here: uipath.com/resources/auto…